One of the apparatuses known in the conventional art is an image forming apparatus wherein a plurality of power modes can be switched, as required, for the purpose of power saving. For example, the Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-9058 discloses an image forming apparatus wherein the power mode can be switched. This image forming apparatus has a normal power mode wherein an image forming process can be started upon receipt of a request for image forming, and a power saving mode wherein power consumption is smaller than that in the normal power mode. For example, when the time elapsed after termination of the image forming operation has reached the mode shift time, the power mode shifts from the normal power mode to the power saving mode. The mode shift time is predetermined and is preset on the image forming apparatus.
Incidentally, the recent development of the network environment has produced a printing system wherein a plurality of image forming apparatuses can be shared by connecting a plurality of image forming apparatuses via the network. However, in the conventional method, the mode shift time is preset as in the case of using each of the image forming apparatuses independently even in such an environment. Accordingly, a sufficient power saving environment may not be provided in terms of the overall power management for each apparatus.
In view of the problem described above, it is an object of the present invention to enable power saving to be achieved in terms of overall power consumption for each image forming apparatus in an environment wherein a plurality of image forming apparatuses connected via the network can be employed.